Network accounting involves the collection of various types of records while sending and receiving information over a network. Examples of such records may include, but are not limited to a session or flow's source, destination, user name, duration, time, date, type of server, volume of data transferred, etc. Armed with such accounting records, various services may be provided that require network usage metering of some sort.
Prior art FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary system 100 for performing network accounting in accordance with the prior art. As shown, a plurality of information sources 102 are provided for collecting information. It should be noted that the information sources 102 may include a firewall, router, workstation, or any other network device that is subjected to a flow of information.
Coupled to the information sources 102 is an aggregator 104. In use, the aggregator 104 receives records from the information sources 102 for the purpose of aggregating the same. In the present description, aggregation refers to consolidation, analysis, or any other type of handling of the data. Once aggregated, the records may be used to afford any desired type of service, i.e. billing, etc.
To date, records have been aggregated based on various parameters including a customer identifier, session's source address, destination address, duration, time, date, type of server, volume of data transferred, etc. In particular, records have been organized as a function of many of the above parameters.
Unfortunately, such aggregation may not reflect a relationship or agreement between the customer and a service provider operating the aggregator. Without such granularity in the aggregation, aggregation may be similarly delivered to different customers. This, in turn, may afford dissatisfaction on the part of some of the customers and the service provider. Specifically, the cost, quality and service associated with the aggregation may not accurately reflect what is expected by the customer.
There is therefore a need for a technique of handling records in an aggregator using details regarding a relationship between a customer and a service provider operating the aggregator.